All posts in 2014

Since my election to Congress back in November, I have been closely following the Asbury Park Press investigative series regarding the Federal Emergency Management Agency seeking total or partial repayment of funds from some superstorm Sandy victims (”Pay it back! Superstorm victims told to return aid,” Nov. 30).

While all taxpayers would support FEMA recouping funds that were acquired via fraud or deception by people trying to game the system, the APP’s reporting leaves me deeply concerned that the monstrous FEMA bureaucracy could be targeting innocent people who rightfully received FEMA monies in the wake of Sandy and have neither the need nor ability to repay those funds.

FEMA’s enforcement actions should be targeted at those who knowingly and intentionally tried to abuse the system, not innocent people who applied for and received monies they believed they were entitled to. Monies, by the way, that have likely long since been expended as part of rebuilding their homes, businesses and lives.

If you are one of these innocent victims I want to hear from you. That’s why along with Berkeley Township Mayor Carmen Amato, Legal Services of New Jersey and the Ocean County Long Term Recovery Group, I will be organizing a free legal clinic for Sandy survivors in Ocean County on Saturday, Dec. 13, from 10 a.m. to noon at the Berkeley Township Recreation Building (630 Route 9, Berkeley).

As the new representative from the 3rd Congressional District, I will stand with any victim of Sandy who believes they are qualified recipients of this money and are now being asked to repay it unfairly. I will request that FEMA provide clear and convincing legal evidence to the contrary before delivering another crushing financial blow to people whose lives were turned upside down by the storm.

Two years after the storm, a look at where the money went and what lessons we can lear

The Jersey Shore was still reeling from the damage caused by Hurricane Sandy when a who’s who list of musicians and celebrities gathered at Madison Square Garden in New York for the nationally-televised “12-12-12 Concert for Sandy Relief”. After a rousing opening set by Bruce Springsteen, actor Billy Crystal took the stage to ask for the public’s support.

“Our national and local governments are responding, but it’s just not enough,” he said, noting that the region faced a price tag of close to $70 billion in repairs.
“All of the money raised by tonight’s event will go to the Robin Hood Relief Fund, one of the premier poverty-fighting organizations in the country,” he continued. “One hundred percent of the money you give will be put to work on the streets in a matter of just days from now.”

The Robin Hood Foundation ended up raising $75 million for the recovery, including $32.7 million that it regranted to various organizations to provide housing assistance and aid for storm victims in New Jersey. And Robin Hood wasn’t alone.

Jill Belloff and her husband lost their Waretown home in Superstorm Sandy and has lived in a rental house since. Now FEMA wants them to pay back $2,500 of what they received in rental assistance. STAFF VIDEO BY PETER ACKERMAN

Many New Jerseyans, who are still displaced from superstorm Sandy, have received letters from FEMA telling them to get out their checkbooks because the agency gave them too much disaster aid.

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(Photo: Gannett)

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

‘It’s like Santa giving you gifts for Christmas, and then in February, sending you a bill.’ Catherine Tango, displaced by Sandy.

FEMA is seeking $23 million from about 3,600 storm survivors

TOMS RIVER – When Catherine Tango opened the letter from the Federal Emergency Management Agency in late October, she began to panic.

Homeless after the storm flooded the Ortley Beach condominium she was renting, Tango, 61, relied on FEMA for assistance to pay her rent and living expenses at an apartment she rented in Howell. But the letter she received in late October demanded repayment of $15,500 — and threatened to garnish her monthly Social Security disability check if she doesn’t pay it back.

“When I found out I could get FEMA help, it was a blessing,” Tango said. “Now it’s like a nightmare.”

Jill Belloff and her husband lost their Waretown home in Superstorm Sandy and has lived in a rental house since. Now FEMA wants them to pay back some of what they received in rental assistance. STAFF VIDEO BY PETER ACKERMAN

(Photo: Peter Ackerman, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press)

TOMS RIVER, N.J. — When Catherine Tango opened the letter from FEMA in October, she began to panic.

Homeless after Superstorm Sandy flooded the Ortley Beach condominium she was renting, Tango, 61, relied on assistance from the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay her rent and living expenses at an apartment she rented in Howell. But the October letter demanded repayment of $15,500 — and threatened to garnish her monthly Social Security disability check if she didn’t pay it back.

“When I found out I could get FEMA help, it was a blessing,” Tango said. “Now it’s like a nightmare.”

FEMA says 1,200 New Jerseyans have received what it refers to as a recoupment letter. The agency is seeking $8 million in repayment from people it now says shouldn’t have received that money in the first place.

USA TODAY

Christie heckled at Sandy-recovery speec

Such a letter was addressed to Jill Svelling Belloff’s Forked River rental home, not the lonely mailbox that fronts the empty dirt lot in Waretown where her Sandy-soaked home once was, and where a new house someday will stand. The demand letter arrived just a couple of weeks before her husband underwent open-heart surgery.

“I’m paying a mortgage, I’m paying rent, I’m paying storage fees, and now my husband might not be able to work — he’s self-employed — and we don’t even have a building permit,” Svelling Belloff, 54, said. “I can’t even express how frustrated I am with how this has all been handled.”

TOMS RIVER – The people who recently crowded into St. Andrew United Methodist Church on a rainy night were on a desperate search for information.

Most were Sandy victims, and many still are trying to rebuild their homes more than two years after the superstorm struck. The meeting, presented by the Ocean County Long-Term Recovery Group, was intended to give these people one of the things they need most — information to navigate the state’s Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation (RREM) program.

“You’re not in this alone,” Sue Marticek, executive director of the long-term recovery group, told the crowd. As she often does, Marticek cites some sobering statistics from Hurricane Katrina, which devastated parts of Louisiana and Mississippi in 2005.

Katrina “is the best crystal ball” for the recovery in New Jersey, Marticek said. If so, the aftermath of that storm is sobering: 18,000 homes are considered not in compliance by U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, and HUD is seeking $522.2 million back from those homeowners.

The homeowners received grants through Louisiana’s Road Home program, but have failed to properly elevate their homes, HUD claims. Many homeowners were defrauded by unscrupulous contractors, while others used the money to pay their mortgages or did not receive enough grant funds to rebuild and elevate. Now they are stuck in a kind of bureaucratic limbo.

TOMS RIVER, N.J., (CBS) — Approaching the second anniversary of Sandy the recovery process is far from complete for homeowners.

“I was saying three months, and then I would say oh it’s going to be another three months, but it’s been two years,” says Chad Lorenzo whose family is hoping to finally return to their Toms River home by Thanksgiving.

Doug Quinn’s house needs to be demolished and the work hasn’t even started.

“The night of the storm was a party compared to what we’ve been through for the last two years, it’s been brutal,” says Quinn.

Frustrated homeowners say insurance companies paid out only fractions of their policies and home assistance programs have been sluggish dispersing funds.

Quinn signed a reconstruction award this month but doesn’t anticipate his home being ready for move-in until the third Sandy anniversary.

“They’re dropping the ball big time and all I see is a lot of finger pointing and a lot of excuses,“ says Quinn.

Displaced homeowners shouted complaints and questions at Governor Chris Christie as he toured the East Dover Marina Wednesday.

The Marina received a $50,000 economic development grant and Christie pointed out that about $1 billion has been awarded or is in the pipeline for home assistance.

“It’s a long time and for anybody who’s not back in their home yet, they’re going to be incredibly frustrated, I understand that, but we can only go as fast as we can go,” says Christie.

His wife Mary Pat Christie also stopped in Toms River for the Sandy anniversary.

She helped volunteers who rebuilt the Lorenzo’s house welcome the family home.

It was the 100th home built by A Future with Hope, a program created by the United Methodist Church of Greater New Jersey which partners with the Ocean County Long-Term Recovery Group and the New Jersey Relief Fund.

“We continue to need people to be involved because this is going to be another three to four years in terms of what the recovery is here in New Jersey. We still have thousands of people out of their homes,” says Bishop John Schol.

Scott Ingold saw the cost of raising his Little Egg Harbor home rise dramatically when he was accepted into the RREM program. The state assigned him the same comany he was going to hire but the price doubled under RREM. STAFF VIDEO BY PETER ACKERMA

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(Photo: Peter Ackerman/Staff Photographer )

LITTLE EGG HARBOR – As homeowner Scott Ingold saw the price tag to lift his 2,475-square-foot home gradualy climb above $200,000, he wondered how it could be so much higher than the agreement he nearly signed with the same contractor months earlier — outside the authority of New Jersey’s largest homeowner initaitive — for nearly half the cost. Just as puzzling, Ingold said, was that the people in charge that he asked about it didn’t see anything wrong.

“You see all these houses in this area, they’re knocking down their houses and they’re selling the land because they’re not getting accepted into the (Reconstruction, Rehabilitation, Elevation and Mitigation program),” said Ingold’s wife, Jessica.

“How many of those houses could have been lifted if this (program) was administered correctly?” Scott Ingold said. “If this house was done for $100,000 that left $50,000, (which) could have lifted a small house.We’re up to ($218,000 now) you could have lifted two more small houses for that.”

The Ingolds contacted the Asbury Park Press late this summer to raise their concerns that the RREM program, the state-run, federally funded initiative designed to lead the rebuilding effort, was being wasteful. Through RREM, eligible homeowners can receive up to $150,000 from a U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development disaster grant.

There’s no proof that anything nefarious was going on in the Ingolds’ case, and it simply may be a reflection of the cost of doing business with the government and its layers of protective measures.

Working with the Ocean County Long Term Recovery Group, the church group helped a family get one step closer to returning to their home, after almost two years of being displaced.

“Can you believe it? Hurricane Sandy was two years ago this October and there are still so many displaced victims,” said Julie Angelo, Canfield Presbyterian Church youth ministry leader.

The group assisted by learning to dry wall and placing drywall in two rooms of the house.

“Doing this type of work was way out of our group’s comfort zone, but they did what they had to do to make a difference. It was hard to see how much work still needed to be done and to hear all the sad stories, especially about all the fraudulent people who stole victims’ money,” Angelo said.

The church group dined at Mary’s Table, which is a free community dinner prepared by volunteers of the St. Mary’s By-the-Sea Episcopal Church. During the dinner the group had a chance to talk to more victims and found out the community dinner started the week of Sandy and ended up serving a dinner for anyone, every night, for three months.

“This group of volunteers was very emotional and thankful we had decided to choose Point Pleasant for our mission trip this year. Our message to everyone is that if you are able and have time, go to New Jersey and volunteer your time and talents to help those victims.

“As time goes on, the number of volunteers is waning, even though there is still quite a need there. They would love to have construction and contractors who really know how to do more of the skilled jobs,” Angelo said.

The Ocean County Long Term Recovery Group may be contacted by calling 732-569-3484, at www.oceancountyltrg.org or by e-mail at info@oceancountyltrg.com. The organization may also be contacted through Facebook at Facebook.com/ocltrg.

“We returned from this year’s trip realizing that even though we seemed to do so little, that really we were an important piece in the whole puzzle,” Angelo said.

– See more at: http://canfield.vindy.com/news/2014/sep/12/cpc-mission-trip-helps-victims-of-hurric/#sthash.tZD6RdDC.dpuf

(Photo: Asbury Park Press photo/Doug Hood )TOMS RIVER – Margaret Quinn responded to 32 online ads, spoke with 14 real estate agents, went to 10 open houses, called four apartment complexes, asked FEMA for a trailer and sought advice from Gov. Chris Christie on how she could find a short-term rental for her family when it came time for her rebuilt house to be elevated.

“After we got married in 1990, we rented the house I grew up in,” said Quinn, who has owned and lived in her home on Bay Stream Drive for more than 20 years, “so renting to us is like a whole new concept.”

People like the Quinns have jumped in and out of the rental housing market since Superstorm Sandy, revealing the meager supply of apartments and rental homes on the Jersey Shore and constricting it even further.

First, countless residents displaced by Sandy who sought apartments ended up couch-surfing with friends or family, hoping their story would draw some empathy from a landlord or real estate agent with an opening.

STORY HIGHLIGHTS

An already strained rental market was exposed to a whole new segment of New Jerseyans after Sandy.

Homeowners struggled to find a rental afterward, and then ended up staying much longer than planned.

Those looking for accomodations while their house is being elevated are finding the problem remains.

Longtime renters are being indirectly squeezed by the influx of homeowners soaking up any vacancy.

TOMS RIVER – Margaret Quinn responded to 32 online ads, spoke with 14 real estate agents, went to 10 open houses, called four apartment complexes, asked FEMA for a trailer and sought advice from Gov. Chris Christie on how she could find a short-term rental for her family when it came time for her rebuilt house to be elevated.

“After we got married in 1990, we rented the house I grew up in,” said Quinn, who has owned and lived in her home on Bay Stream Drive for more than 20 years, “so renting to us is like a whole new concept.”

People like the Quinns have jumped in and out of the rental housing market since superstorm Sandy, revealing the meager supply of apartments and rental homes on the Shore and constricting it even further.